


Off the Rack (Echo Bites Back)

by Sab



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: 3000-7500 words, AU, F/F, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-26
Updated: 2006-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:00:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sab/pseuds/Sab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Remix of Sangerin's <a href="http://koffeeklub.net/sangerin/btvs_narcissus.htm">The Boy, The Lake, and the Flower</a>, 2004</p>
    </blockquote>





	Off the Rack (Echo Bites Back)

**Author's Note:**

> Remix of Sangerin's [The Boy, The Lake, and the Flower](http://koffeeklub.net/sangerin/btvs_narcissus.htm), 2004

You open your eyes on a mangy, gnarly cat pausing to clean the back of her wrist as casually as if she were checking the time. She arches her sticky paw and then steps solidly on your cheek and goes nggaaiow. You're lying on a nappy couch and you find a blanket's been sprawled across your shoulders, nasty and splotched with stains and tufts of human hair. The cat performs a scrutinous circle of your hips and your ass before settling down heavily and letting loose with a rattling death purr.

You yawn and shove the cat aside as you stand up, open your eyes for longer than a blink to figure where you are. You're in the alley behind the movie theater, where someone's strung up bare light bulbs and there's a couple couches flanking some plastic tables with their overflowing ashtrays. In the Sunnydale you know, even in the underworld at least half these vampire chicks should be showing off something cliched and chubbifying from the Gap, but instead everything's kinda asymmetrical and futuristic, every single outfit hand-tailored and not even an accessory off the rack. You rub your eyes. A Hogath demon leers at you and pulls at the skin on his face seductively, and you give him a "not in this lifetime, buddy" glower and sit back down on the couch. "Ew," you say to the cat. "What a pit."

And that sticky on your neck and your shoulder, that's definitely blood, and that sticky on your lips and chin probably is too, yup, tastes like blood and nothing, not even that killer hangnail or the fang-sized puncture wounds on your jugular and the inside of your elbow, hurts. In fact, you're great, hunky-dory. And then you remember.

Things you remember: You wished Buffy the Slayer had never come to Sunnydale. Then the freaky demon-faced chick. Harmony and her poser posse dressed for nun school. Xander Harris and that power-nerd Willow, vamped up and closing in, Xander's big fat stupid head and his big fat hammy lips on your neck. And then there was -- you feel at the back of your skull, medium-sized bump, no pain -- a really quick KO and then, back alley beach party.

"Hey!" you holler to the hunchback urinating near the trashcan. "This isn't what it's supposed to be like! I was a trendsetter! I brought Pucci prints back! You can't expect me to live here!"

The hunchback burps, zips up his fly and throws his arm over the shoulder of his skank vamp girlfriend, who bares her teeth at you in a cocky smile before pinching the hunchback's ass and heading the other way down the alley. And the couch you're sleeping on smells like urine too, and so does the cat, and so you struggle to your feet again.

The cat arches her back and leans into your calf, rubbing her face on the straps of your Jimmy Choos. You reach down, pick her up easily and hold her where you can see her, eye to yellow eye. Then you snarl, tear just hard enough at the flesh to bury your face in and eat.

You are beyond disgusted and well into unbelievably grossed-out, but you are hungry and holy crap this cat is good. You find she is leaking from too many places at once and you spread your hands out to conserve the blood and later, after you lick them clean, you are going to scrub your hands twenty times with antibacterial soap, the serious stuff, the kind doctors use.

It turns out, you get to, or at least someone scrubs them for you. The second blow to the head hurts less than the first, but you black out and wake up in a cage. With books. Back at Sunnydale High, just like always. You look around at the empty shelves and the blown-out walls and the clutter and think, damn, in your world, Giles would launch a major wig.

"Well?" says this Giles, blinking down in the light. "What do you make of it?"

"Assuming Cordy doesn't have a government-created clone she's been keeping on the down-low for legal reasons, my thinking would be parallel universe?" Oz turns a chair around and straddles it so he can look you in the eye. "Looks exactly like her. I mean, not one fraction eviller, you know what I mean?"

You can't stand it anymore. "Look!" you say. "I could eat any one of you I wanted to, but I'm not going to, so just, shut up. You're Giles." You point to Giles. "We have one of you in my world, and you look things up in books while Buffy fights demons. And now, you are going to help me get back to my world, or else I swear I'll bite you so hard..."

"Identical," says Giles to Oz, nudging his glasses back up on his nose. He crouches down and peers at you. "We know about the parallel universe," he says.

"We are also aware of the Slayer, and have, through great pains, summoned her here to help us in our current...peril."

"Imminent peril," Oz clarified.

You feel your forehead want to get all snarly, but instead you slump against the wall of the cage. "Imminent peril too? That's just great. And did you see that Xander is still with that freakozoid Willow?"

"I'm here," says Buffy, stepping from the shadows along with the most beautiful woman you have ever seen. Her auburn hair is pulled into a short ponytail, not preppy at all, more "shopping movie star" or "rehearsing ballerina," and when she turns her curved cheek to take in the room you watch her eyes sweep from Giles to Oz, to Buffy and finally to you, where they settle and your vampire heart congeals, glup, like a clot of butter.

"What the hell is this?" says Cordelia, glowering at Giles, her hand on her hip. You don't even consider breathing, or crying like a little girl. "Is that what I look like? I seriously need a facial."

"We, uh, seem to have recovered her from the parallel universe the forum portended," Giles said. "There's probably one just like each of us somewhere out there. Merits consideration. But -- yes, Cordelia, this one very much appears to be you."

"Why's she in a cage?"

"Oh, also she's a vampire," says Oz.

"How unfortunate for her," says Cordelia, and her mouth is huge around her vowels and you must, must bite her.

"People are being eaten in Cleveland," Buffy puts in, conversationally. "Wanna tell me what I'm here to slay? Is it this one? 'Cause I could kill this one and be home before the after-dinner vamps hit the theater district." She pulls a stake from the waistband of her pants and points it, backhanded, at you. You squirm into the corner of your bookcage.

"Not me, you stake-happy maniac," you say, and Cordelia quite possibly smiles at you. "I'm not even supposed to be here, and I am certainly not supposed to be undead, it's just a, what's it called? A clerical error! In my universe there was this girl, actually, I think she was a demon, and she totally baited me and made me wish you'd never come to Sunnydale and then, voila. Grey's the new pink, the Bronze is both lame and scary, and I don't have a car. Fix me!"

Buffy looks at Giles and resheathes her stake. "You're kidding, right?"

Giles holds his hands up and shrugs, because clearly here in Bizarro World this Giles is still whipped by Buffy and for a second you think she might just dust you for fun. "No, not exactly," Giles says, shuffling over to a stack of ancient tomes and enough pointy weapons to swiss-cheesify you and you're less psyched about being in the cage than you were before. "The local demon population, under the direction of the Master, is proving to be more of a menace than we can handle with our limited resources," he says, thumbing through his book.

"Which is mostly me and Giles and my van," Oz says.

"Ahem!" says Cordelia, who is dressed head to toe in black, elegantly accessorized with a pearl multi-strand necklace and some truly lustworthy black leather flowers sewn asymetrically on her rockin' knee-high boots. "And me, of course."

"Of course," says Giles.

"We found her two weeks ago under the bread table at Vons," Oz says.

"I can slay!" Cordy says, and you are this close to leaping up and volunteering, just to feel her pointy stake penetrate. You feel your forehead getting all, grrrr, vampy, and you leap up and cling to the bars, snarling and sniffing. Cordelia smells like, well, maybe a little lavender soap but mostly blood, and you think you are O-positive and are really looking forward to finding out.

Nobody even flinches when you rattle your cage, but Cordelia waggles her stake at you with a look that just dares you to try something. "Get me out of here!" you want to say, but you will go absolutely apeshit crazy if you don't drink Cordelia before you go, and so you shut up and let your face get pretty again, and you sit down and pick flecks of blood off your nailpolish.

"Ah," says Giles, still with his books. "The Master, yes. He's...causing quite a bit of trouble and it seems to us that it might be easier just to do away with him entirely than to continue to lose good men and resources trying to fight his little...attack squads."

"How long has he been around?" Buffy asks.

Oz looks at Giles and then says, "Pretty much since the dawn of time."

Buffy scoffs, and you can't help but echo the sentiment. Back in the real world the Slayer and her minions would have made cocoa mix out of whatever super-vamp thought he ruled the school. You fix your eyes on Cordelia's perfect dimpled knees to steady your thinking, and you realize you must have her, all of her, and sooner rather than later.

"Okay, I'm on it," Buffy says, scooping up a wooden cross for her back pocket and dumping a fistful of stakes into her bag. She scowls at you and there's a scar across her lips that your Buffy never had, not that you remember, anyway.

You've had quite enough. "Can I please get out of this cage?" you whine. "I mean, what if Oz gets wolfy and you need it?"

"Wolfy?" Cordelia asks, and Giles and Oz look uncomfortable.

"Oh, yeah," you say, beaming up at her juicy jugular. "Oz is a werewolf. They didn't tell you?"

"Full moon's not till this week," Oz says.

"Still," Giles says, thoughtfully. "The book cage might be the perfect solution. If we were to lock you in here before you changed, imagine the trouble we'd save in unexplained beast maulings?"

"You're kidding me," you and this Buffy say in unison. "You've got a werewolf and you're not using protection?" Buffy goes on. "Oh, never mind, I said nothing, not my problem. I'm going to kill this Master of yours, and then I'm outtie."

Oz and Giles look at each other again, and Buffy shoulders her bag of pointies and leaves.

"Should we have let her go off alone like that?" Giles asks, long after Buffy has gone and the door's swung shut behind her.

"I want my world back!" you say, because no one seems to be paying attention to your problems at all. "Did I mention the clothes? Did I mention the car?"

"Yes, yes," Giles says, nudging his glasses again. "With Buffy taking care of the Master I will admit it gives us some breathing room to pursue other situations, and the forum did portend that a member of the Watcher's council would be integral in maintaining the universal order."

"Proud they namechecked you?" Oz says.

"A little," Giles agrees, grinning.

"Research mode?" asks Cordelia.

Giles clucks his tongue and then peers over the top of his glasses, down at you in your cage. "I swear I've seen that pendant before. The Leeveree Chronicles, perhaps?"

Cordelia squints. "Could be Versace? That's not a knockoff, is it?"

That last part addressed to you. "Are you kidding?" you say. "Like I'd be caught dead in --" And then you stop, because you are both caught and dead, and you honestly have no idea who designed the necklace you're wearing, but it's definitely costume, and old, probably 60s or 70s deco or maybe even older. You twirl the pendant between your fingers a little and smile up at Cordelia. "Anyway, it's not mine."

Giles laughs mirthlessly. "Of course. You say a demon gave this to you?"

You shrug. "I thought Sunnydale High had scored another member of the Fashion Conscious, but no such luck. Of course, there's no law preventing a demon from going to high school, right? Because when I get back I have this feeling she's going to be just about my only friend in that hellhole." Cordy, Giles and Oz stare at you like you're from Neptune. "Um, comparatively speaking, that is," you clarify. "This place is MUCH more of a hellhole than my Sunnydale High, of course, next to this place, my school's like Beverly Hills. You know, but with nerds."

"Quite," says Giles. "Well, thank you for that utterly useless story. I propose we examine the text of the Chronicles and find out just what powers that amulet possesses. Cordelia, if you could keep an eye on our guest --"

"Her?" Cordy sneers at you and you bristle and let out a low predatory growl.

"Her," agrees Giles. "It will allow Oz and I to prepare the proper incantations to activate the amulet. My copy of the Chronicles is upstairs next to the books on Indonesian sorcery and before the wing on trepanning. Oz?"

"I vote trepanning," Oz says, following Giles across the library. "I never say no to a good trepanning."

"Mmph," says Giles, and they go up the stairs, and it's just you and Cordelia and a couple of metal bars separating your blood and hers. Cordelia settles into brown wooden chair and looks at you like you're something she scraped off her shoe.

"You could come with me!" you say to Cordelia. "I mean, you'd have to go to a different school, because I'm Cordelia Chase and I have, kind of, a reputation to maintain and I can't risk you messing that up. But that's no big, right?"

Cordy uncrosses and recrosses her legs, and looks at you. "What kind of reputation might that be? Most likely to be vamped?"

You feel the heat rising in your face, but you force yourself to breathe evenly. "I was popular!"

"And clearly so happy with your popularity that you asked a demon to change your entire world. Oh, oops. That doesn't sound very happy at all."

"Okay, not my fault!" you say, and you reach your arms through the bars but she inches her chair away, just barely out of reach. "If it hadn't been for that dork Xander --"

"Xander HARRIS?"

"Yeah, in my world he's still human, technically anyhow --"

"And still Captain Nerd-Spaz, I assume?"

"Well..." you begin. "It's not like he's king of the pocket protectors, or anything. He hangs out with Buffy, and she's moderately cool --"

"Xander HARRIS?" Cordelia says again. "Tell me you didn't let him take you to a dance, or something humiliating like that?"

Your forehead vamps before you can stop it, you let out a rolling hiss, shake the bars hard, furiously, and then collapse on the ground, no closer to Cordelia but solidly embarassed, hungry and dumb. You watch her jugular pulse again. "We dated for a while. A SHORT while, barely a blip on the radar --"

"Ew," says Cordelia. "That is just nasty."

"Tell me about it," you sigh. "Hence the whole wish-demon business. And wouldn't you know, Xander Harris, ruining my life yet again, only this time the bastard vamped me!"

"Ew!" says Cordelia again. "Did you wash your neck after?"

You can't help but laugh. Here's this Cordelia, just like you except for the world, walking around all day surrounded by ugly-ass demons, no colors, nighttime curfew, no car, and it's Xander Harris that gives her the heebie-jeebies. Here's this Cordelia who is prettier than you are, stronger and smart enough not to make the mistakes you did. "You know?" you say, thoughtfully. "I think I wouldn't have minded so much if he weren't with that freaky wannabe witch."

"Xander and AMY?" Cordelia says. "I did not see that one coming."

"Willow Rosenberg," you say. "In my world she totally thinks she's gonna grow up to be a badass Wicca."

Cordelia laughs, and the sound is like music and even the grey walls of the library seem to ring brighter and more cheerful. God, you think, you are such a babe. Cordelia licks her lips and you see the pink tip of her tongue and you want to bite it open and feel it pop -- pop! -- like a dumpling in your mouth. "Willow, naturally, shoulda guessed," Cordy laughs. "Willow's been a vamp since like sixth grade. A pretty popular one, I mean, for a vampire. Sometimes she's not totally uggo, either, I mean, she really works the leather but it's a look for her, you know? Not that I'd ever be caught dead in a getup like that."

You nod. "I saw her."

&gt;From somewhere you hear Giles let out a Britishy yawp of victory, and then the patter of approaching footsteps.

"Are they going to stake me?" you ask Cordelia. She shrugs.

"Probably," she says, coolly.

"They're not going to send me back to my world?" you ask, but you've known the answer since you woke up in here. You're a vampire, a killer, and if this Giles shares even one trait with his real Sunnydale counterpart, you know he'll never let you out of here alive.

"Like that?" she asks. "So you can go back to your nice, demon-free world and kill all your friends?"

You sigh heavily. "If I had any friends," you say. "God, it is all Xander's fault."

Cordelia gets up from her chair and comes right over to the bars, even curls her hands around them to look squarely at you. "You want me to let you go?" she asks.

&gt;From above you you hear Giles saying, "yes, yes! Quite!" and you hear Oz's monotone reply, "seems like it." And then you hear the clatter of wooden weapons and the soft thunk of books being piled on books.

"Yes!" you say, and she's close enough for you to smell all the nuances in her blood, the low iron, the high magnesium, that delicious vitamin B.

"I can do this," she says, not to you particularly. "I'm Cordelia Chase, not one of Giles's Scoobies. If I want to let you go, I can just go ahead and do it. I mean, you're me, right?"

"Close enough for government work?" you try.

She crosses to the desk and digs out a ring of antique keys hooked to a little rubber Casper, the Friendly Ghost. She finds the right key on the fourth or fifth try, and the lock tumblers disengage and you hear the click that means the cage is open and you are free. Cordy leans in to the bars, not letting you out, not yet.

"I expect points for this," she says to you. "I do this, you tell your vamp friends not to bite me, right?"

Your fingers touch hers around the bars, and your brain shuts down. "Right," you say. "Sure." And you push against the cage door and it swings open and you are free in the library of Sunnydale high again.

"Cordelia?" Giles says, from much closer now. "How is our guest?"

Cordelia smiles at you, and your stomach flips and you feel heat spreading across your chest, radiating from your stomach, from between your thighs. "Muy bueno!" Cordelia shouts. "No problems here!" And then she meets your eye and whispers "RUN."

You dive for her, all teeth and hands before you even realize you've vamped. You pin Cordelia to the ground, lick her cheek, her jaw, her neck, lean in close and inhale her scent, sweat and panic and Chanel.

"What are you doing?" she squeals, and you clap your mouth over hers long enough to shut her up.

"Shhh," you say to her lips. "It's better this way, we can stay beautiful, just like this, forever." And you realize that this is what you can do for her, how you can save this Cordy who was never dumb enough to fall in with Xander Harris in the first place.

And then you bury your face in the tender part of her jugular, bare your fangs, and drink.

She writhes at first, then collapses into the kiss, rolling her head back, stroking at you with her weak and bloodless hands. "I love you," you whisper, and you press your bloody lips to hers and kiss her, leaving a trail of blood down her jawbone, down her chin and chest. She squeaks.

Your hands are on her breasts and you know how she likes to be touched, even unconscious, and you lean down to bite, to break the skin on the inside of your forearm and you bring the dripping blood up to Cordelia's face, kiss her to open her mouth with your tongue. She's limp as a rag doll and up close you can see the cuffs of her jacket are ratty, torn and badly resewn. "Um, get a tailor," you mutter, close to her ear. She doesn't move.

You set her down gently in her chair, then crouch before her, holding your bloody arm up to her face and watching the trails of your blood trickle down her cheeks and her chin, your cheeks, your chin. You part her lips --

\-- and her lips, your lips, are the last things you see before they explode in a cloud of bone and dust, and the last thing you hear, from behind you, is Oz, five feet if he's an inch, slamming down his stake and whispering, "gotcha!"

 

end


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